The present invention concerns a device for connecting a hand lever to a setting linkage for selecting gears of a change-speed gearbox and, more particularly, to a device which creates a releasable connection of the hand lever.
In a known hand lever connecting device shown in DE-PS-3,307,950, the setting linkage is additionally used for changing the gears by hand so that the sliding guide for the lower end of the lever part cannot move relative to the joint half connected to the setting linkage and the acceptance part cannot move relative to a gearbox casing part. Both the support for the lever part in the acceptance part and the joint between the setting linkage and the acceptance part are designed as spherical joints. An annular ball socket operating as a support and supported for damping purposes on a support spring is directly supported on the circlip in order to accept the spring force, and is also penetrated by two positioning trunnions which cannot move relative to it. The radially inward (i.e., relative to the bearing axis) ends of these positioning trunnions engage in a guide slot, parallel to the bearing axis, of the joint ball fixed relative to the lever, and the radially outward ends of these positioning trunnions engage in a corresponding guide slot of the acceptance part in each case. The annular ball socket operating as a holding-down device is pressed, as an elastic plastic part, into a corresponding cylindrical section of the lower ball socket and is fixed relative to the latter by a further circlip. With this arrangement, it is impossible to design the acceptance part with the ball socket for the subsequent insertion of the hand lever as a pre-assembled unit or to assemble or dismantle the hand lever by uncovering the acceptance part by a gate guide, especially since it is also not directly possible to bring the sliding guide, connected to the gear-change shaft, for accepting the lower joint ball of the hand lever into a position aligned with the axis of the acceptance part.
An object of the present invention consists essentially in providing a device for the releasable connection of a hand lever by a joint to a setting linkage for selecting gears in an automatic gear-selection device of a change-speed gearbox. The hand lever of such a device can be brought finally, i.e. after the installation in the vehicle of the setting linkage and the conventional selection gate, without great difficulty into its predetermined installation position relative to the position of the gear knob.
In the device according to the present invention, the acceptance part, together with the support spring, the two support rings and together with the single circlip which is still necessary, can be configured as a preassembled structural unit in which the hand lever can, after the fitting of the conventional selection gate has been completed, be inserted through the latter and be fixed directly in the predetermined installation position.